July 23, 2011

I talk to "Skepchick" Rebecca Watson, whose story of getting hit on in an elevator at an atheist convention went viral on the internet. The short clip above is me setting up the story. Click continue to the whole discussion.

ADDED: Here's the description of the elevator incident and the discussion that follows:

My own skepticism aligns more with the South Park guys than Crack's. Religion is goofy nonsense. It also can help people find some virtue and courage in their bilious souls. Or their mixed-up brain chemistry as it were.

It's always amusing to simply replace atheist/believer in any argument. Still works exactly as planned, just different target (eg: "Why don't believers just move on? Okay, there's a God. Do something else!"

Way off topic: Professor, I have the very same glassware you have! In three sizes. The tiny ones are what we use for wine, which would appall (sp?) that Zagat blogger. They hold about 2.5 ounces, so the bottle lasts longer, and they sit nicely on almost any surface without breaking.

I argue atheism is a loosely organized religion. They have a dogma and a faith. Just as a religious person cannot prove there is a God, an atheist cannot prove there is not a God. Hence, atheism is faith based.

It seems to really stir up an atheist to learn they are a faith based religion.

"It's always amusing to simply replace atheist/believer in any argument. Still works exactly as planned, just different target (eg: "Why don't believers just move on? Okay, there's a God. Do something else!""

If you think there is a God, you can only move on if you've decided he doesn't need worshipping or want special statements or acts from you and if you're sure he doesn't have the power and the inclination to dole out rewards and punishments in this world and the next.

In which case, it hardly matters whether you are an atheist or a theist. What is this God who doesn't matter?

Atheists congregate together in an exercise of mutual soothing and reassurance - because, really, I believe they doubt that we live in some randomly-ordered world.

@Don't Tread, make that some atheists act that way because ... Well, frankly, as an atheist myself I don't understand it. I am an atheist because, looking at the mathematics of it all, the universe doesn't make any sense to me if there really is a God (yeah, I noticed that I capitalized the word) that concerns Itself with individuals at a personal level. Randomness, contingency, all these things do make sense mathematically speaking. Why do we have five fingers? When Acanthostega crawled out of the sea back in the Devonian it had 8 digits on each foot. A proper God would have had us descend from Acanthostega instead of some five-fingered tetrapod, so that we could have worked in base 16 all along, instead of having to translate base 10 to octal or hexadecimal.

The whole kerfuffle over Rebecca Watson's article and the commentary that followed it did something I didn't think was possible - it made me feel sympathetic (at least for a minute or two) to Richard Dawkins.

"Way off topic: Professor, I have the very same glassware you have! In three sizes. The tiny ones are what we use for wine, which would appall (sp?) that Zagat blogger. They hold about 2.5 ounces, so the bottle lasts longer, and they sit nicely on almost any surface without breaking."

They are bizarrely resistant to breakage. I've dropped them in the sink and they don't break.

"I argue atheism is a loosely organized religion. They have a dogma and a faith. Just as a religious person cannot prove there is a God, an atheist cannot prove there is not a God. Hence, atheism is faith based."

The lack of belief in something means no more than a lack of belief. I do not believe in unicorns or fairies. I find no urge whatsoever to attempt to disprove their existence because I have other things to do.

Same goes for God/gods/demons/angles/etc.

"It seems to really stir up an atheist to learn they are a faith based religion."

If by 'stir up' you mean respond, it's because your arguments aren't very sound and it's only akin to responding to some other topic I do not agree with. Holding a different view is not being stirred up.

But, to address your misconception about faith and atheism, I will tell you how I view it. I can't, you see, speak for all other atheists as it appears you're attempting to do for all other believers.

I hold my faith in things I have experienced to be true and actual. I have yet to see anything that would convince me to believe in pretty much 100% of the supernatural. There are vague areas concerning magnetism and gravity I might be open to discuss.

But not gods, demons, fairies and ghosts. You need to bring some evidence to the table to even have the discussion, otherwise it's simply two conflicting views or, frequently, a degeneration into one side besmirching the morals of the other.

That gets tiresome.

Now, if you think that my requiring your having some actual evidence instead of just a belief is dogma. We have different definitions of the word.

I find atheists in two camps, and my dear sister and her husband each represent a side. My sister is the "move on" sort. She is respectful of others beliefs.

The other sort is her husband, who finds it more important to not only let you know his lack of belief, but wants to make sure you know just how stupid you are. He does this both actively, and passive...his Facebook page states "I don't believe in Santa Claus either" for "Religious Views".

The most aggressive atheists usually have a bone to pick with religion: some sort of wrong they felt was done to them or someone they know. It's primarily about grievance. They blame religion for one thing or another, and their opposition takes on the form of a crusade. It's not that a crusade (despite the word's connotation) is inherently religious, it's just inherently human. But yes, it does start to feel a bit like a religion of their own when they behave this way.

Though once religious, I find myself to be more an agnostic now. I don't particularly care what others believe, and have no desire to purge religion of of believers. Maybe this is because I've known many, many highly intelligent and rational religious believers. Maybe it's because in general religion doesn't make people any more irrational than any of the crazy pseudo-science, hippy-dippy bullshit one finds among progressives. There are a myriad of bad ideas people adopt out there in the world. Religion only occasionally becomes one of them.

Everyone wants to be "right" about religion. Not really. Most just quietly move on with their lives and want to be left alone.

Atheists that go to conventions fill the space in the non-believing spectrum that evangelists do in the believing spectrum. They actively go out, seek converts and try to impose their beliefs on others.

The evangelistic atheists I've known are every bit at self-righteous, and more condescending than anyone of the believing world I've known.

Looking at Rebecca Watson again, I'm reminded of "Beer, getting ugly girls laid for 5,000 years." She was bragging about being hit on in the elevator, not complaining.

Didn't mothers use to instruct their semi-attractive daughters on how to handle getting hit on so they could navigate the perilous away from home world and not make a federal case out of the inevitable aggressive behavior out there?

@Oligonicella, I do a lot of technical writing, and I have decided that I am the world's worst proofreader of my own output. I don't rely on spell checker, but I still can't find all my spelling and grammatical errors even after taking Moss Hart's advice to let the document sit for a while and read it later.

@DADvocate, your last two paragraphs are dead on the money. I have often described myself as a "non-proselytizing" atheist. I don't feel any personal need to ram my beliefs down others' throats, and I do not see the point of turning to enablers in the ACLU to get creches torn down at Christmas. I really don't understand people who do -- they must be a lower form of life.

And your last paragraph? Let's just say I'm glad I had swallowed my coffee before I read it.

Let's get back to the important stuff. At what point in the video can we see the glassware? Which of the several items at "Design Within Reach" is it? How does it compare to the glassware that Althouse recommended at Amazon last Christmas?

I won't listen to it because, like ST, I agree that Ann isn't qualified for an interview of this type - all this talk of Watson's atheism and not one word about her being a NewAger which is the most obvious indicator she'd be in the particular incident she was.

To have so much talking, but no one knows what to ask, is intellectual highway robbery.

This was, in my opinion, one of your best discussions on Bloggingheads -- a fine mix of interview, skepticism, prodding, gentle encouragement, and respectful confrontation on your part. Very nice.

I particularly liked how well to expressed the "external arrogance" of many in the atheist movement -- an arrogance that is built, it seems, into the skeptics' "I did it MYSELF" enterprise. (This, as opposed to the hidden or sublimated arrogance of the religious community.) Really well done.

Regarding the God who shouldn't' be worshiped, I'm reminded of something Jim Holt wrote in Slate. Perhaps, he wrote, given our experience of the world, we are dealing with a Creator who is "100 percent malevolent but only 80 percent effective." Does that fit your bill?

In essence, our skepchick seemed to think reason and logic are encompassed by "science", and for Ann to imply Amandapotamus might be a fallacious dimwit (my characterization) could only be a matter of relativistic opinion.

Or has Skepchick not picked up on the fact that Marcotte is nothing but a ball of fallacies and neurosis? Bad sign . . .

Atheists do have (at least) one good point: How religion can inhibit the development of a society. There are a lot of good examples, past and present (Iran). That's the point of some atheist activism. There's a political component.

"I won't listen to it because, like ST, I agree that Ann isn't qualified for an interview of this type - all this talk of Watson's atheism and not one word about her being a NewAger which is the most obvious indicator she'd be in the particular incident she was."

How, without listening to it, do you know all that? What if you are wrong? This certitude of yours is the same mentality you purport to criticize in others. In fact, we do talk about homeopathy and, as you can see from the titles, Oprah. But you're wedded to your beliefs, ironically.

I have no problem with atheists lack of belief in God, as long as they leave the beliefs of others alone.

Same goes for the religious believers who want to proselytize (sp?) and hound others into believing the way that they do.

If you are an atheist and don't believe in God, why would you care if someone else who does wants to say a prayer? If the prayer is useless to your mind, just think of England or something while it is going on.

I'm fairly agnostic. I may not believe everything that I was taught as a child growing up Catholic (in fact I got into a lot of trouble in catechism class questioning the three in one aspect of the trinity), however, I can't say that there isn't a God. Might as well hedge my bets and act like there is and go forth and sin no more :-)

As to science vs religion, there are many concepts in science that were once thought fantastically impossible that are now facts and accepted belief. Atoms, electrons, quarks etc.

Why do those who are atheists and scientific think that the existence of God or even fairies is impossible?

Pastafarian! All you need to do is put a colander on your head. It's the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And, yes. There are people who believe in the flat earth. And, aliens. And, circuses.

While over in Norway they think MASONS are Christians! Shows ya, what doesn't show up in history books. (Where the Masons were a response to the destruction of the Knights Templar. Back when the Catholic Church had two Popes. And, the won in France controlled Europe.)

Even though the date is known. October, 1307. Or 1309. Some of the Knights Templar escaped. And, joined England's Richard II. From there you get to the Masons.

NOT CHRISTIAN! Or, you'd have to say the "first break-away" ... well before Luther.

The God Of The Bible is a very severe fellow. There are lots of people who share faiths these days who don't go back to those ancient rituals ... where a woman ... if she had sex before marriage ... would be stoned to death.

CHOICE. It's more than either/or.

And, politics? It's not a religious experience at all. Even when you throw money in the pot for this ... it's YOUR money. God doesn't give receipts.

Given your discussion with Rebecca about inciting skepticism and self-criticism (and non-back-patting) within one's own community, I wonder how you think about dealing with sexism within your group of regular and irregular commenters?

Take, for example, at least 8 different writers in the above comments alone.

You are quick to expose and unravel gender-biases language and attitudes in the NYT (and thank you for that). But how about here at the ALT?

@Crack Emcee: for what it's worth, they do give Oprah, homeopathy, and even (to a degree) Whole Foods a vigorous ribbing.

I love South Park. I'm just saying I know the difference between life and a fucking cartoon. My dead friends haven't returned in the next episode.

I thought, at times, Ann was sending out coded messages for The Macho Response. Sorta like the French Resistance looking across the Channel, putting out signs.

Did Ann, even once, bring up Watson's NewAge beliefs? There are tons of NewAgers posing as atheists out there, or people trying to mix-and-match. It's very frustrating, because it proves how little anybody understands of either topic.

How, without listening to it, do you know all that? What if you are wrong? This certitude of yours is the same mentality you purport to criticize in others. In fact, we do talk about homeopathy and, as you can see from the titles, Oprah. But you're wedded to your beliefs, ironically.

I will put $100.00 down, right now, if you even once mentioned Rebecca Watson's a Newager anywhere in that piece.

That's the interview I'm saying was, both, was worth having and that didn't occur.

Homeopathy and Oprah - in a discussion with the Skepchick - is low-hanging fruit. Let me guess;

Do you have questions I could answer? I would be happy to have a discussion.

But:"As to science vs religion, there are many concepts in science that were once thought fantastically impossible that are now facts and accepted belief. Atoms, electrons, quarks etc."

That end is actually backwards. They were beliefs based on math and other related evidence, then proven as fact. We have direct evidence, it's no longer necessary to believe in them in any sense other than I have access to that knowledge.

I think the biggest weakness of atheism is their tendancy to displace their spiritual appetite/energy into something mundane. No, they don't beleive in God or Santa Claus, but they do believe in things like AGW and Obama. With the same intensity of an evangelical.

And because they have little experience with organized religion, they tend to make mistakes based on ignorance and inexperience.

OT - Never thought I'd do this but I'm going out to see Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris today. It got great reviews. We shall see. Will report in if it truly is as fab as the reviewers claim it to be. Since even atheists have to worship something Allen apparently (according to the reviewers) worships Paris in the 20's.

I'm working on a piece about NewAge now (started it last night) that should show how superficial this interview is, when it comes to a knowledge of NewAge and reality. I'll give you a hint now, though:

Remember Ann's post on Rebekah Brooks' hair, and I said I'd, too, pondered it and how she could be so vain?

A man like me pondering a woman's hair may not seem normal, but I know my NewAge indicators, and I'm rarely wrong.

I don't care what other people believe. I am Christian and don't try to force people to see my religion. I try, however short i may fall to live my religion in this world. Christians beat you over the head with Christianity are hardly Christian (in my view). Also, atheists (like Amy Alkon) who make it their lives work to disprove or mock the religion are worthless too. Shut the fuck up already!

We are men and women. It almost always matters which we are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcississtic postures. There's no scrubbing them out. The best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock, humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has always been scandalous.

"P.S. I wonder if imagining alternate gods is easier -- and more fun -- for atheists, in part because the stakes are so low."

Since mankind has created gods in just as many descriptions as writers, I'd say no.

"P.P.S. Disclosure: a lifetime atheist wrote the above line. Is it an example of the arrogance of which you spoke?"

And a lifetime atheist disagrees with him. But yes, that statement was arrogant and a tad ignorant.

If he thought it was easy, he didn't give any of the detail that a culture would.

It's trite to come up with some nubile gang or troop of thugs and write about them dicking with humans. It's a whole other thing to give them a history and make that part and parcel to the culture's history; events, morals, everything.

@Crack Emcee: I don't doubt Rebecca's still a card-carrying "Progressive", and not given enough to skeptical consideration of her activist and feminist peers, but--

The confessional linked to is of a former fan of homeopathy, not a current believer.

Dude, feminism - which is at the base of Watson's current predicament - is goddess culture formalized. This is why I said Ann is the wrong person to interview Watson:

Ann doesn't know what threads to pull.

I say Watson is/was/and - without serious intervention - always will be a NewAger. (I say the same thing about Ann.) You see the "progressive" overlay - just as Ann thinks I should focus on something else about her - but I stay focused on the person.

Trying to deceive the rest of us, about who we are, is about as NewAge as it gets.

There is no such thing as a real and true atheist. A real atheist has no concept of what a deity is much less understands that one even exists. That is an atheist, which is basically babies and possibly small children. Even children of 'atheists' know what a deity is because they are told that they don't exist. So in order for to become an 'atheist' they in essence have to come to know the existence of a deity, then summarily reject that deity, then deny they exist.

A modern 'atheist' is merely a God denier if not an outright God hater. That's fine, but just admit it.

She died her hair conundrum red. She is someone who wishes to be noticed and, simultaneously, wishes to take umbrage at being noticed. You can't handle the elementary, my dear Watson.....I think her spiritual beliefs are of a piece with her hair color. Her dye of militant atheism is taken more to irritate Christians than to express the true color of her beliefs.......I'm an agnostic. One of the arguments for the existence of God is that I don't believe in him, and I've been proven wrong on just about everything......People seek out the spiritual nutrients that they need. Perhaps Scientology has helped John Travolta and Tom Cruise become enduring movie stars. Seek and ye shall find.....I was reading a history of the Rothschild's. They became the wealthiest bankers in Europe at a time when they did not believe in or practice double entry bookkeeping. There are truths and there are techniques.

One thing that intrigues me here: Ann playfully circles around the idea that conferences are about (in so many words) getting laid.

And Rebecca, if I'm not mistaken, concedes that she's met multiple boyfriends ('partners'?) that way.

So I wonder if Ann was (very gently) trying to goad Rebecca to admit to, or display, a bit of sexual vanity that mitigates the oprobrium heaped on her faceless elevator suitor? --in essence, to confess she despised and ridiculed the man, not because she felt threatened, but because his lame game was an insult?

I'm not about to get into a debate with you about how many atoms can dance on the head of a pin or how you can or cannot prove the existence of God, angels or unicorns.

If you want to believe in non belief, that is your right. Just as it is the right of others to have belief in unicorns or God.

However, as a person myself with a scientific mind and being a very strong INTJ personality, I have a larger problem with your scientific dismissal of the hypothesis of God or an underlying intelligence in the universe.

Scientific method would indicate that you would not discredit the hypothesis as false until you have proof of the falsity of the hypothesis. Since you cannot prove either the existence of God/Intelligence or the absence of the same, a true scientist would continue to hold the hypothesis as an open question.

To dismiss the hypothesis without the proper process, indicates that your non belief is based on faith in the non existence and not scientific proof.

Most do move on -- the vast majority of non-religious people wouldn't be caught dead at an atheist convention.

I blame Richard Dawkins for this. By floating the notion that atheists should counter the elect, the saved, the chosen and the other self-applied labels religious people use to distinguish themselves from other religious people atheist should proclaim themselves the brights, as if atheism is some kind of accomplishment. Consequently we have seen a sudden uptick in the number and visibility of atheist who take pride in that label, as if they've joined an elite -- an elite without a discipline and without a grueling and expensive initiation. Elite status on the cheap.

Atheism today is something like flying saucer contactee phenomena of the 1950s. Among the UFO believers if you wanted status and respect you do something like announcing that you've been commissioned by the Venusian High Council as their delegate to Planet Three. And viola! now your heretofore aimless speeches and pedestrian scribbles have meaning and portent and must have an audience, ergo the flying saucer convention. The same is true with this sudden crop of vocal and demonstrative atheists. A world-renown geneticist has proclaimed them bright, therefore the must have valuable and provocative things to say. Most people are utterly bored with their endless re-plowing of the same infertile field, which amounts to nothing more insightful than "How can you idiots believe in an invisible boss in the sky?" and a further ten thousand variations on the theme. So they gather in groups and spew the ten thousand variations at each other at some weekend retreat at an otherwise undistinguished Marriot.

The irony is that after all the speeches and lectures, after all the CDs, DVDs, and MP3s have been vended, after all cash has changed hands most of the convention attendees weren't atheists when they arrived and remain non-atheists have they've gone. Rather than non-believers most of these self-proclaimed atheists are just garden variety seekers who've found a way to worship their own intellects. Sixty years ago they'd have been saucer contactees. Fifty years ago they'd have been beatniks or hippies. Twenty years ago they'd have been wiccans or UFO abductees, or both. Same mentality just a new kind of corps d'elite.

Don't let my disparagement of organised atheism fool you. There are plenty of real atheists out there. Some are members of your church or synagogue, some just stay home quietly on Sundays. Some will get very demonstrative if religious folks try to get their doctrines taught in public schools, others will be just too bewildered by religiosity to act. Atheism, real atheism, isn't an ideology any more that autism is an ideology. It's not an organizing principle, because that's what religion is. And it's nothing to hold a convention about because it's literally a nothing, it's an absence, not a presence. You might as well found an organization of people who can't wiggle their ears, and then hold of a convention of said non-wigglers where you sit around counting the minutes until the uninvited celebrity guests fail to show up.

Atheism is probably a different kind of mentality from the human norm, not better or worse, just different. If you're a religious person I imagine that prayers, hymns and sermons move you in a profound way which you find fulfilling and pleasurable, enough that you return to the same building weekly to get another dose, and you pay handsomely for the privilege -- up to 10% of net income in some cases -- ergo it must be valuable. To this atheist what you hold as valuable is incomprehensible to me, from my perspective it's like going to fine restaurant to eat the napkins.

Richard Dawkins says he's an atheist, and who am I to question his sincerity, but I wish he'd shut up. He's made atheism fashionable, which is so perverse that I find myself at loss for words to express my disgust.

I was about to say that Watson's grudge was against evolution more than anything.

Evolution would seem to support a lot of complexity in the matter.

Why would men be interested in women for no reason; how it would be a lot easier to evolve a male brain obsessed with women's genitals than to evolve really interesting women's genitals; and how that might look like objectification to a feminist.

Elvin Bishop I fooled around and fell in love, would be the evolutionary complication.

Of course evolution also evolved the grudge.

Maybe that's a narcissistic purification of quest sending, which is the way a man is tested, and something he can be rewarded for, if it's not directed at men in general but a specific man.

@Crack Emcee -- I'm referring to Trey and Stone's take on Mormons via their new musical, not the cartoon. The cartoon is just an identifier.

Your obsession with new age idiocy is not where we part ways. I deeply respect your pushback against stupid ideas. Where we part ways is your use of New Age as a proxy for human depravity. Human beings are naturally credulous and naturally self-justifying even in deeply awful causes. Highly rational minds can embark on murder sprees. I give you: The French Revolution.

Of course you point to the bodies. But so can those who declare that Christianity is murderous, or colonialism is murderous, or individualism is murderous. Funny how all this superstition, evil, and death manages to spread itself all around the world and all through history, New Age or not.

Someone who practices mediation or Yoga because it gives them some personal peace is no threat to anyone. In fact, as practices of personal discipline such things arguably help many people be happier and perhaps even better adjusted.

It is the "evangelical groupthink crap" that is worrisome and that is a far more elemental human condition than its expression in vegetarianism or alternative medicine.

A modern 'atheist' is merely a God denier if not an outright God hater. That's fine, but just admit it.

Every word you said is bullshit. I know what a deity is, but have never believed. The circumstances of my birth prevented it, making me a born skeptic/atheist. I think what you're saying is true for most "atheists," like Watson, but we real ones are out there, too. I diss the rest of these posers regularly.

SBVOR,

I find militant atheists FAR more annoying than anybody else along the religious spectrum. Militant atheists are among the most intolerant people on the planet.

This can be true.

William,

She died her hair conundrum red. She is someone who wishes to be noticed and, simultaneously, wishes to take umbrage at being noticed. You can't handle the elementary, my dear Watson.....I think her spiritual beliefs are of a piece with her hair color. Her dye of militant atheism is taken more to irritate Christians than to express the true color of her beliefs.......

You're getting it. It's the same thing I was saying about Rebekah Brooks:

You've got to know what to look for. NewAgers exist because most people don't understand the symbols that NewAge feeds on. They're all around us, moving them, but completely hidden ("occult") to the rest.

Lucius,

I wonder if Ann was (very gently) trying to goad Rebecca to admit to, or display, a bit of sexual vanity that mitigates the oprobrium heaped on her faceless elevator suitor? --in essence, to confess she despised and ridiculed the man, not because she felt threatened, but because his lame game was an insult?

I don't know what Ann was up to (haven't watched it) but I'm sure there's truth there in regards to Watson. Like DADvocate said, Watson was bragging.

traditionalguy,

Tell me why do men and women seek that explanation for the pain of meaninglessness? They are seeking very destructive means, such as Marxism and nature worship.

They cannot conceive existence - reality itself. They can't "walk the walk" as I do. I don't need to worship anything, or pray to anyone. When I die, I will know I am no more or less than the trillions (or more) of ants, flies, etc., out there and the experience is nothing new, unusual, or special.

That idea alone - that we are "but grains of sand" (Christianity, there, kids) - is too much for the ego-gratification-desiring losers in the NewAge to handle.

They think that they have a religious duty to convince everyone else to believe what they do.

I managed to have a debate with a co-worker at a bar just a few days ago on this subject. It was fun at first, but it was clear after a while that, despite his initial claims that he just liked to debate and values 'free thinking', that in reality he is seething with hatred towards religion and values free thinking as long as it is the same as his on the subject.

It was very easy to push his buttons, despite the fact that I am most accurately described as an agnostic.

Fen wrote (10:15 am): I think the biggest weakness of atheism is their tendancy to displace their spiritual appetite/energy into something mundane. No, they don't beleive in God or Santa Claus, but they do believe in things like AGW and Obama. With the same intensity of an evangelical.

Well said. The issue is about human nature, not a particular expression of human nature.

They cannot conceive existence - reality itself. They can't "walk the walk" as I do. I don't need to worship anything, or pray to anyone.

"I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." - Puddleglum

It's awesome when people OUTSIDE a group try to define who is, or who is not, a genuine member.

Atheists are the proverbial herd of cats. There is a vocal minority of them who are on some kind of secularizing crusade, true. But most atheists are surly curmdugeons of liberatarianish bent, and not joiners.

This is what Rebecca Watson is all about. The old school of the atheist/skeptic movement (eg James Randi) was curmdugeonly, relatively apolitical, and insufficiently feminist and activist. People like Rebecca Watson have been working to change that, and they are just as intolerant to "accomodationist" athiests/skeptics as they are to religious people.

You could have simply said no and not launched into a tirade besmirching my intent.

But then I would not be true to my INTJ personality.

:-)

However, as a scientist, explain to me how you can dismiss the hypothesis that there may or may not be a controlling intelligence or plan to the Universe (aka God) and have leapt to the conclusion that there is not a "God", when you cannot scientifically prove either the existence or non existence of such.

If you are true to scientific theory you would accept that the hypothesis is unproven.

Or in plain speak. Just say, I don't know.

The "I don't know" position is the one that I adhere to, because.....I don't know. Of course, there is one sure fire way to find out, however I don't hope to prove the hypothesis that way for at least 25 more years.

@DBQ:as a scientist, explain to me how you can dismiss the hypothesis that there may or may not be a controlling intelligence or plan to the Universe (aka God) and have leapt to the conclusion that there is not a "God", when you cannot scientifically prove either the existence or non existence of such.

Replace God with "invisible, incorporeal pink unicorn". The answer is the same. We don't assume things that have no evidence for or against. Scientifically, we ignore them.

When the day comes that a natural phenomenon can ONLY be explained by unambiguous evidence of the hand of God, then and only then will a belief in God be opne to scientific inquiry.

The author of that piece cannot read minds. Unfortunate, but true. Any conclusions he draws from his interpretations of the words another uses are burrowing for nuance. Easily done, as few words have one meaning.

Your obsession with new age idiocy is not where we part ways. I deeply respect your pushback against stupid ideas. Where we part ways is your use of New Age as a proxy for human depravity,...Someone who practices mediation or Yoga because it gives them some personal peace is no threat to anyone.

Bullshit again. Don't take this wrong, please, but your understanding of spirituality is superficial. I won't try to disprove what you say, point-by-point, but I will give you this and this and remind you that even the big brains among us are ignorant to how it all works - especially how it all fits together. Ask anyone here about the Catholic church and many, if not most, can quote you chapter and verse on it - how it's set up, what the beliefs are, even what the apostates think - but ask about NewAge and their knowledge will be spotty at best.

In the sense of a scientific hypothesis "God did it" is not a hypothesis. If you would provide it in a form that satisfies Webster's Unabridged:hypothesis -1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.

that would be very much appreciated. Otherwise, how to I discuss "God did it"? That as a logical argument is no better than "A big battery somewhere".

I read your posting at the link, and frankly you don't know what your talking about.

How shall I put this? Your brain can do something mine can't, that is your brain allows you to have a real yet transcendent experience by interacting with something that is not demonstratively real or transcendent. Your brain allows you (compels you, perhaps) to have the so-called religious experience. Mine doesn't. And since it seems to function very well without it I see no reason to fret about, or for you to be disturbed by my lack of belief in invisible beings.

People like Richard Dawkins and his convention-going followers would say it's the mentality of the future, but there is no evidence to support that claim. (For shame, Professor Dawkins, and you call yourself a scientist!) Atheists likely co-existed with the religiously minded as far back as you care to look. Perhaps we were the cavemen who saw no point in crawling deeper into the cave just to paint some mammoths on the walls. Perhaps we're a hold-over from the Neanderthals, seeing as how they didn't leave any trace of religion. So much for being the mind of the future, eh?

I wrote: I wonder if imagining alternate gods is easier -- and more fun -- for atheists, in part because the stakes are so low."

You responded: Since mankind has created gods in just as many descriptions as writers, I'd say no.

Thanks for the reply, but you misunderstood my point -- which, perhaps, I simple expressed poorly.

I meant, is it easier for non-believers to imaging many alternate types of gods, as opposed to believers, who can often be so wedded to their own conception of God that they cannot imagine things possibly being different.

I was *not* saying that there haven't been many different conceptions of God over the millennia. I was suggesting -- note the conditional phrasing above -- that for a deep believer in God-Version-X, it may be more difficult to entertain the question, "But what if God is completely different from what you surmise?"

Case in point: the idea, for many, that "God is Love" or "God is Good" is simply part of what it means for God to be God. It's built into the term, like an unmarried bachelor.

I wonder, then, whether it is harder for such a believer -- with all the emotional and personal attachments placed upon God-beliefs -- to take their idea of "God" and dissect it, deconstruct it, and turn it inside out.

That is, is it harder for them -- as opposed to non-believers -- to routinely imagine a God who possesses a completely different set of characteristics?

In plain speak, DBQ, just say honestly that you don't know that invisible, incorporeal pink unicorns are secretly running the Federal Reserve.

I don't believe in invisible, incorporeal, pink unicorns because it is ad hoc or contrived. You admit as much in the rest of your comment. "I can insert ANYTHING into your argument." Of course you can insert any ad hoc claim into it. That's pretty much what "ad hoc" means. The more ad hoc or contrived something is, the more implausible and unlikely it is.

Is belief in God similarly ad hoc? Perhaps, but you have to give some reasons for thinking so. The idea that there's a ground of existence, a stopping-point to the chain of causality, does not strike me as contrived even if it is false. Moreover belief in God is a trans-cultural, trans-epoch phenomenon involving the vast majority of the human race. Again, this doesn't mean it's true, but you'll have to show how such a commonly-held belief is ad hoc in order for your unicorn argument to not be a false analogy.

The Crack Emcee wrote:I was the guy who stayed home. Didn't have a beef - nothin' - I really didn't care. Then all hell broke loose and so did I.

I absolutely agree with your distaste with these "fashionable" atheist like Skeptigal. There's more than a hint of New Age bullshit tainting those "atheist" conventions. Real atheism is in the brain from the beginning (or more likely religion is there from the beginning and atheism is just its absence) and its nothing one is converted to, any more that one is converted to left handedness. Maybe it's hereditary. Maybe your ancestor and my ancestor were the guys standing outside the Parthenon wondering what all the pretty architecture was about.

"hypothesis -1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts."

that would be very much appreciated. Otherwise, how to I discuss "God did it"? That as a logical argument is no better than "A big battery somewhere".

Correct. How do you discuss the opposite that "God did not do it", with no proof of the absence of God.

I have no opinion one way or the other.

I just have problems with people who purport to be of scientific mind, leaping to conclusions base not on facts but upon their belief that "God did not do it".

Believing also without fact that "God did it" is the core of religious belief and people are entitled to their religion.

Believing without fact that "God did NOT do it", strikes me as a religious belief as well.....and you are entitled to believe that way.

Just don't try to fool yourself that you are not choosing a religious belief because you want to cloak it in (unproven) scientific theory.

Your brain can do something mine can't, that is your brain allows you to have a real yet transcendent experience by interacting with something that is not demonstratively real or transcendent. Your brain allows you (compels you, perhaps) to have the so-called religious experience. Mine doesn't.

I'm not prone to religious experiences. I became a Christian in my mid-20s after spending two years trying to refute Christianity.

At any rate, if I really believed that I was incapable of having an experience that many other people have, the first thing that would occur to me is that they may be seeing something that I don't.

In order for "magic pink unicorns did it" to be scientifically valid, first there has to be some unambiguous evidence that such things exist and what their powers and capabilities are.

Without such evidence, magic pink unicorns should be left out of any scientific explanation.

Even DBQ would refuse to pay a mechanic who blamed his car problems on gremlins, and charged for prayers and excorcisms. But DBQ would not call his refusal to believe in automotive gremlins a "religion", because he has a double standard where his God is concerned. Once DBQ's God is in play, all definitions of science and reason must change to accomodate it.

@Jim S:At any rate, if I really believed that I was incapable of having an experience that many other people have, the first thing that would occur to me is that they may be seeing something that I don't.

So you'd be one of the crowd admiring the Emperor's New Clothes? And every one of you would be thinking there is something wrong with him for not seeing them...

@Walter, I think we got our glassware at Target. I don't see them at designwithinreach.com.

@Crack, you certainly are prolific! Your words, insults, and links back to your blog seem generally bigger and more plentiful than your insights.

However, I do think there's something to this statement of yours: "The desire to blame the man, without evidence, is feminism." That seems a pretty accurate assessment of much modern feminism, though not the older kind. One might similarly say that "the desire to blame humans, without evidence, is environmentalism".

I was going to respond more to DBQ and Jim S., and realized that we have reached the point where theists and atheists are now talking past one another, so I think I'll just shut up. There are some profound axiomatic differences in how the two groups perceive existence, and talking about them just goes in circles.

"... the first thing that would occur to me ..." First is not second, third, or last. Meanwhile, can you give any reason for thinking that belief in God is ad hoc? Or a meaning of "lack a belief" that doesn't collapse into disbelief or agnosticism?

Acknowledging my atheism is about what I don't believe, not about what I do believe.

As such, I have no need to prove the non-existence of god(s). Nor do I feel the need to congregate with others like me, proselytize for an absence of belief, advocate against other religions or generally make an ass of myself in the "spiritual" world.

Atheists who feel the need to congregate to mutually affirm their "belief" are just as religious in their own way as the Opus Dei. They are atheists in name only, and they have a profound misunderstanding about the nature of belief and disbelief. "Atheists" of this type are simply another branch of New Age cultism wherein only the affirmation of others buttresses the "disbelief" they share from the doubt constantly banging on the door.

I have no doubt, therefore, I have no need of a support system.

These aren't difficult things to understand.

Another point is this: The assumption that atheists are leftists. I'm about as far from the left as I can be on most issues, and yet I'm an atheist. Go figure. I imagine there are plenty more like me out there.

Once DBQ's God is in play, all definitions of science and reason must change to accomodate it.

I don't have a God.

I have already said. I don't know, which is the honest answer.

You are not willing to be honest in that you do not know if there is or isn't a controlling intelligence. You choose to believe that there isn't in the absence of proof of the non existence of such a thing as "God".

I'm willing to be shown by proof one way or the other. You evidently have your mind made up and adhere to your faith in the absence of God.

She's right, it is not good etiquette for males to choose an elevator as a place to make passes at females. I suppose many rapists find it convenient to resort to rape only upon being turned down, and so requesting sex where rape feels easier is something rapists would tend to do. True, the guy obviously wasn't being a rapist, since he didn't actually rape, but it rather makes one wonder whether he was playing with the scenario, examining his feelings about raping, etc., in order to get it fixed in his mind how he would do such a thing if he ever decided to do it. It is an interesting example, illustrative of reprehensible etiquette and a good taking-off place for discussing rationally what makes good etiquette.

What bothers me is the extent to which Ms. Watson fails to refrain from using this as a general example emphasizing the wretchedness of bad etiquette, and in particular emphasizing the badness of not caring about females' fear feelings and of objectifying (whatever that means) females. Etiquette is very overrated and conflated. In particular, is there something noble about a male's caring greatly about a female's feelings about being scared? Of course not, quite the contrary. It is very useful for the general good that males be open to females about their feelings toward them. Sometimes a male will think that he has a good chance of getting sex from some female he wants sex with, and if he rather suggests that to her, well, yes, she will have good reason to be more scared than she was before, because, yes, males more tend to rape or forcibly sodomize females that they think they sexually want and over whom they feel they might can get some influence over. But if males were open about their sexual desires, females would more tend to know whom to be scared of. If it were normal for males to be open thus, females would actually feel safer because, more importantly, they'd actually be safer, and a female does the general safety of females a disservice by making such behavior seem reprehensible. (Not to mention she does an even greater disservice by making sexual relationships desired by both parties harder to initiate, especially in the more quick ways less likely to be associated with snobbishness and exclusive social circles.) Sure, a female isn't pleased by being made afraid by an undesirable male hitting on her, but that's quite the selfish consideration both for the female and the male to make; morally what she and the male should consider is the general effects on starting relationships (particularly in non-snobby ways) and on making females safer from males being more open and less hidden in their sexual desires.

And the whole objectivity business is just a cliche to me. Mostly a male properly cares for one female mate. OK. So how properly should he think of other females beyond just as associates or friends? Mostly, to the extent he wants another female, he wants to have sex with her. If Ms. Watson feels it is wrong for a male to have sex with more than one female, she should say that. Otherwise, she should realize that there is a place for male sexual relationships involving little caring and time on his part, unless she feels males being essentially polygamous, having many fractional wives, is a good thing. What does she mean by a male objectifying females? If she means males having sex without investing time and caring responsibility, then she should decide whether she feels whether males should be strictly monogamous or whether males should be allowed to be polygamous but that everything else should be considered wretched fornication.

"Why do those who are atheists and scientific think that the existence of God or even fairies is impossible?"

Who says they do?

Rather, there is no evidence to suggest or prove God or fairies exist. Moreover, we cannot apply the scientific method to try to prove--or disprove--the existence of God or fairies, so they must remain forever outside the realm of science. In short, it's not necessarily impossible they exist, but their existence or nonexistence is impossible to ascertain. They must forever inhabit the realm of myths and fairy tales...the projections of humankind's own imagination on the physical world.

I am an atheist, but I don't begrudge my friends and family members their religious beliefs...thos of them who have any.

However, I am appalled when I read news reports of Texas governer Rick Perry calling for prayer to prevent wildfires in their state or the Mayor of Harrisburg, PA declaring her intent to prayer and fast for three days to find a solution to their city's financial problems.

This is where religion becomes offensive, and even dangerous: where persons in positions of responsibility rely on their personal superstitions to wish for miraculous fixes for social problems that are not amenable to being fixed by prayer, problems that affect their constituents at large, who put the person in office to work for real world solutions to real world problems.

Chief Mojo, I would argue that you are not an Atheist, but perhaps agnostic. My assertion is the Atheism is a religion with a dogma, rules, prothizing, etc.

Examples: Atheists in the armed forces are asking for their own chaplin. They don't want a Christian or Jewish chaplin.

Liturgy. Have you ever noticed when you talk to an Atheist, they all say the same thing? Usually about 10 minutes into the discusion, they reach the point in their church service where they say "and Christian symbols are really just pagen symbols that they adapted". And if they are doing the long-version Atheist scriptures, they will then list them.

Gabriel Hanna: Your emperor's new clothes argument is the second false analogy you've given. I'm still waiting for you to respond to the first one: how is the existence of God ad hoc like the existence of invisible pink unicorns?

Chef Mojo: To disbelieve something is to believe that it is false. If you really believe that God does not exist you have to take responsibility for it and work out the reasons for it. If you're saying you simply lack a belief in God, then I ask the definition of "lack a belief" that doesn't collapse into disbelief or agnosticism.

However, I am appalled when I read news reports of Texas governer Rick Perry calling for prayer to prevent wildfires in their state or the Mayor of Harrisburg, PA declaring her intent to prayer and fast for three days to find a solution to their city's financial problems.

This is where religion becomes offensive, and even dangerous: where persons in positions of responsibility rely on their personal superstitions to wish for miraculous fixes for social problems that are not amenable to being fixed by prayer, problems that affect their constituents at large, who put the person in office to work for real world solutions to real world problems.

"And not one a true atheist nation. Lift up a rock and you find belief under every one of them, starting with Rasputin's role in Russia."

Oh dear God; not this type of argument again. Pray tell, how they were not atheists? They clearly didn't believe in God or gods and they rejected all religious belief systems; that seems pretty much to be the only requirement as far as I can tell.

You do not get to pick and choose your ideological brethren based solely on whether they are convenient or not. Rasputin's only contribution to the USSR was in weakening the Romanovs.

"They aren't true atheists" is the equivalent of claiming they "aren't really communists" or "we just didn't spend enough". It's what true believers always do when they can't handle the fact that their belief system somehow failed them.

I get it. Free from the shackles of religious beliefs we were supposed to be able to enter a glorious age where decisions were based on reason and not superstition.

Instead these "rational" governments killed and impoverished more people in the name of their cause than any other ideology in the history of mankind.

It hurts, I know. As a Catholic I have to put up with the fact that my fellow Church members have not always been in the right. Such is life. But unless they actually left or were excommunicated I won't deny their Catholicism. Criticize and analyze? Yes. Deny? No.

So unless the Soviet leadership (as well as that of those other nations) suddenly found God, and just failed to mention it when they were destroying Churches and executing religious leaders you have to accept that they were atheists as well.

Chief Mojo: First, I apologize if I offended you. I get into philosopher mode and start analyzing without the requisite social graces.

"To disbelieve something is to believe that it is false."

Only if there is the assumption that the previously held belief had validity in the first place.

How in the world is this true?

"If you really believe that God does not exist you have to take responsibility for it and work out the reasons for it."

Why? Does my disbelief impact the lives of others in such a way that it becomes incumbent upon me to "take responsibility" for it, like a convicted criminal paying restitution? That's plain silly.

I'm not talking about social or legal responsibility I'm talking about epistemic responsibility. You have an obligation to reason correctly and to draw conclusions in an appropriate manner.

"If you're saying you simply lack a belief in God, then I ask the definition of "lack a belief" that doesn't collapse into disbelief or agnosticism."

Again, why do you ask? Why is it important to you to have me define "lack of belief?" Do you argue against my atheism in order to buttress your belief in God?

I ask for several reasons, but perhaps the most important is that I think Christianity is (a) true and (b) important. At any rate, you left a comment saying you shouldn't have to have reasons for your belief that God doesn't exist. Surely you expect such a statement to warrant a response?

@Jim S:how is the existence of God ad hoc like the existence of invisible pink unicorns?

Where does God live? Is he material or immaterial? Has He any limitations on what He can do or cannot do? By what means does He do what He does? What evidence tells when God has or has not done something, as opposed to it happening "naturally" or the Devil doing it?

Until you outline some of these answers, "God" is as ad hoc as my unicorns.

A stone suddenly rolls downhill, it knocks a car off the road that is barrelling down on a two-year child. God, the Devil, or nature and on what evidence?

@DBQ: Not believing in God is religious and unscientific, not believing in magic pink unicorns is religious and unscientific, not believing in automotive gremlins is religious and unscientific. Well, at least you are being consistent--the words have "religion" and "science" have now had their definitions changed so that no science exists, merely competing religions.

Good luck getting the rest of the world to accept those definitions, and in getting anyone to take your science concern-trolling seriously.

Robert Cook: This is where religion becomes offensive, and even dangerous: where persons in positions of responsibility rely on their personal superstitions to wish for miraculous fixes for social problems that are not amenable to being fixed

Socialists rightfully consider Religion to be the Enemy. One wants man to supplicate himself to the State, the other to God.

@Christopher:Unless Perry or the Mayor of Harrisburg were doing nothing but praying, the complaint is pretty misleading outside of 1st amendment objections.

You got that right. I have no objection to calls for prayer in times of crisis--they do no harm, as long as they are not a substitute for action, and as long as I am not made to pray by force.

Are the Texas Rangers breaking down doors to make sure everyone prays? Have all the first responders been fired, and everything left to God? No, and no. The governor's call to prayer neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.

And that's why I get called an "accomodationist" and other nasty names by some other atheists.

I think that you are forgetting at least one aspect of Oligonicella's initial post on belief and disbelief.

Olig conceded that one cannot provide evidence for the non-existence of God. (An impossibility.)

But she did say that, regardless, it would be "tiresome" and ultimately impossible to maintain some illusory open-mindedness about everything (1) for which there is no good evidence and (2) for which one cannot provide evidence of non-existence.

You say that the only answer to questions of God's existence and fairies' existence is "I don't know."

That seems to me a perfect example of such illusory open-mindedness. To say, "I don't know" about the existence of fairies is disingenuous at best.

And of course, with Occam's Razor completely dulled, your stuck with one lazy answer to all of these questions:

It's not just that such answers are tiresome. It's that such answers are, for most of us, not true accounts of what we actually believe and how we actually act.

Tell me, do you honestly hold the existence of fairies to be an open question in your mind? Does the fact that you cannot disprove their existence -- again, an impossibility -- keep you from thinking and saying, in everyday life, "Of course they don't!"

It seems to me that is just how we live, most of the time. And a perfectly adequate and rational way of living when it comes to such questions.

And that fact hold even if one doesn't accept the idea -- as one should, I think -- that the burden of proof is and ought to be on the person MAKING the scientifically unfalsifiable claim.

Where does God live? Is he material or immaterial? Has He any limitations on what He can do or cannot do? By what means does He do what He does? What evidence tells when God has or has not done something, as opposed to it happening "naturally" or the Devil doing it?

Until you outline some of these answers, "God" is as ad hoc as my unicorns.

I don't think you understand what ad hoc means. If theists were unable to answer any of these questions it would mean that theism lacked explanatory power or scope or internal coherence. These are different criteria than adhoc-ness. To be ad hoc is to be contrived. An ad hoc solution is one that is arbitrary or has no relevance beyond that what it purports to explain. Ad hoc explanations can be used to explain virtually anything. For example, Marxists often use economics in an ad hoc way, an "economics of the gaps," using it to fill all the gaps in their historical reconstructions. Of course, just because some economic explanations are ad hoc, it doesn't mean that all of them are.

Of course theists do have answers to your questions, they've been fairly well advertised, and I expect you know at least some of them.

How so? I disbelieve physicalism, the claim that the physical universe exhausts reality. I therefore believe that physicalism is false, and it is presumably incumbent upon me to (epistemically) justify this belief.

I'm an atheist. The majority of my friends are atheists too, coincidentally.

With the exception of the handful of Objectivists I knew back in college, I've never known anybody who has been to an atheist convention, atheist rally, atheist *lunch*, or atheist anything else. We never discuss religion unless there's something wacky in the news (like media-manufactured 'Rapture' thing last month) or somebody else brings it up.

So personally, my answer to the title question would be "uh... we did?".